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Health and Welfare

Lack of Specialists at UK Affects Patients

By Linda B. Blackford, Lexington Herald-Leader

Lisa Esenbock and her son Logan, 2, are adjusting to the retirement of UK's Dr. Charlton Mabry, the "Michael Jordan of newborn metabolic conditions.

The day before Thanksgiving, 2-year-old Logan Esenbock went into a trance-like state, then screamed for an hour. Logan suffers from PKU, a rare metabolic disorder that makes it hard to break down protein. The condition was caught 10 days after his birth through a state newborn screening program and he was formally diagnosed at the University of Kentucky. Until this summer, he'd been under the care of Dr. Charlton Mabry at UK's Mabry Metabolic Disease Unit. But Mabry, 81, retired this summer and hasn't been replaced. Instead, Logan's appointments — along with some 50 other patients being treated by Mabry — were canceled, and his mother was told another doctor wouldn't be available until January.